Ghost Movies

The Shining is a 1980 horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay with novelist Diane Johnson. The film stars Jack Nicholson as tormented writer Jack Torrance, Shelley Duvall as his wife, Wendy, and Danny Lloyd as their son, Danny.

The film tells the story of a writer, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who accepts the job of the winter caretaker at a hotel which always gets snowed in during the winter. While his family looks around the hotel during closing day, the psychic hotel chef discovers the psychic abilities of Jack’s son Danny, and Danny’s ability to detect ghostly presences in the hotel. In the chef’s family, this ability is called “shining”. When the hotel becomes snowbound, Jack Torrance is driven mad by the ghosts in the hotel, and he tries to murder his wife and son.

Initial response to the film was mixed, and it performed moderately at the box office. Subsequent critical assessment of the film has been more favorable, and it is now viewed as a classic of the horror genre. The novel’s author Stephen King had very conflicted feelings about it (see Reception and Comparison with the Book) which have oscillated over time. He produced a TV mini-series remake in 1997.

Plot

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) arrives at the Overlook Hotel for a job interview. Manager Stuart Ullmann (Barry Nelson) warns him that the previous caretaker got cabin fever and killed his family and himself during the long winter in which the hotel is entirely isolated. The hotel itself is built on the site of an Indian burial ground. Jack’s son Danny (Danny Lloyd) has had terrifying premonitions about the hotel. His mother, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), tells a visiting doctor about Danny’s imaginary friend ‘Tony’, and that Jack, her husband, had given up drinking because he had physically abused Danny after a binge.

The family arrives at the hotel on closing day, and is given a tour. The elderly African-American chef, Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers), surprises Danny by speaking to him telepathically and inviting him for an ice cream. He explains to Danny that he and his grandmother shared the gift; they called the communication “shining”. Danny asks if there is anything to be afraid of in the hotel, particularly Room 237. Dick tells Danny that the hotel has a certain “shine” to it and many memories, not all of them good, and advises him to stay out of the hotel rooms.

A month goes by; Jack’s writing project is going nowhere, Wendy is concerned about the phone lines being out due to the snow storm, and Danny is having more frightening visions. Jack tells Danny that he genuinely loves and cares for him, and that he would like to stay in the hotel forever.

Danny’s curiosity about Room 237 finally gets the better of him when he sees the room has been opened. Meanwhile, Jack confesses to Wendy that he’s had a nightmare in which he killed her and Danny; immediately after this, Danny shows up injured and visibly traumatized. Wendy thinks Jack has been abusing Danny again. Jack wanders into the hotel’s Gold Room where he meets a ghostly bartender who serves him alcohol. Jack complains to the bartender about his difficulties in his relationship with Wendy. Wendy shows up and apologizes for accusing Jack, explaining that Danny told her a “crazy woman in Room 237″ was responsible for his injuries.

In Florida, Dick Hallorann gets a premonition that something is wrong at the hotel. Jack investigates Room 237 and has an encounter with the ghost of a dead woman there, but tells Wendy he saw nothing. Wendy and Jack argue violently about whether Danny should be removed from the hotel, and Jack returns to the Gold Room, now filled with ghosts having a costume party. Here he meets the ghost of the previous caretaker, Delbert Grady (Philip Stone), who tells Jack that he has to ‘correct’ his wife and child.

Danny starts calling out the word “redrum” frantically, and scribbling it on walls. He goes into a trance, and withdraws; he now says that he is Tony, his own “imaginary friend.” Jack sabotages the hotel radio, cutting off communication from the outside world, but Halloran has received Danny’s telepathic cry for help and is on his way.

Wendy discovers that Jack has been typing endless pages of manuscript repeating “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” formatted in various ways. Horrified, she confronts Jack, he threatens her and she knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat, locking him in a storage locker in the kitchen, but Grady releases him.

Danny has written “Redrum” in lipstick on the door of Wendy’s bedroom. When she looks in the mirror, she sees that it is “Murder” spelled backwards. Jack picks up an axe and begins to chop through the door leading to his family’s living quarters. In a frantic maneuver, Wendy sends Danny out through the bathroom window but Wendy can’t escape the same way because the window sticks half-way. Jack then starts chopping the bathroom door down with the axe. When Jack has almost hacked his way through, he pushes his face into the splintered wood and calls “Here’s Johnny!” with homicidal intent. As Jack unlocks the door, Wendy swipes at his hand with a butcher knife; Jack backs off and starts prowling around the hotel. Hallorann enters, but is killed by Jack, who then chases Danny into the hedge maze. Danny manages to evade his father by walking backwards in his own tracks — a trick formerly used by Native Americans. Wendy and Danny escape in Hallorann’s vehicle, while Jack freezes to death in the hedge maze. The final shot of the movie is of an old photograph taken at the hotel on July 4, 1921 in which Jack Torrance is clearly visible while Midnight, the Stars and You is being played through the hallways.